Introduction

With the acceleration of global aging, the psychological problems of older adults caused by social isolation (Donovan and Blazer 2020), empty-nest living arrangements (Zhang et al. 2019), physical mobility limitations (Musich et al. 2018), cognitive function deteriorations (Panza et al. 2018), and multiple chronic diseases (McGilton et al. 2018) are becoming increasingly prominent. The government could establish mental health interventions to help older adults live longer with autonomy, dignity, and care (Peisah et al. 2022). Related studies have confirmed that government support to strengthen older adults’ self-reliance is beneficial for enhancing resilience and improving their mental health (Hu et al. 2020; Rozario and Pizzo 2022). The concept of helping older adults to help themselves, originating from Western culture and influenced by individualism, has been introduced to China with collectivist tradition since the early 20th century (Chang 2020). However, it has shown difficulties in rooting and cultural barriers in gerontological mental health care in China (Qiu et al. 2018). One important debate is whether the self-reliance tendency, in other words, the anti-welfare dependence attitude, that highlights the independence and autonomy of older adults is related to better mental health outcomes.

In East Asian countries, Confucianism constrains public support for welfare dependence on the government and attaches great importance to high self-reliance and strong family-centered filial responsibility (Steinmüller 2023). As Confucian thinkers, older adults have a natural affection towards self or family rather than the government for welfare support (Shi 2018). Curiously, however, when the government emphasizes self-reliance in the agenda of healthy aging, people complain that the government is evading responsibility, and it has sparked a series of societal concerns about the feasibility of relying on self-care and family support for gerontological mental health promotion (Yang 2022). In fact, the Confucian emphasis on helping people to help themselves is not simply shifting the government’s responsibility to individuals. The critical perspective of Confucianism under the expansion of the market economy would allow for a sharp analysis of its political and therapeutic deployment, revealing methods for promoting localized mental health promotion among older Chinese adults. This study provides an example of how philosophical thought can become both a topic of research on gerontological mental health and a tool for its analysis.

Older populations are a vulnerable group; the government should protect their mental health—the sharp contrast between the rich and poor due to market economy expansion has made older adults undergo significant changes, experiencing a process of social marginalization with incredible frustration (Tyner 2021). In China, with the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, the law of the jungle theory of “survival of the fittest” has become increasingly popular (Jin 2022). Because of popular social Darwinism, older adults affected by the law of the jungle tend to believe themselves as victims of the market economy and have a non-cooperative attitude towards society and the government (Yan 2021). Under the influence of a strong victim mentality, some older adults even commit suicide (Liu et al. 2018). Therefore, the successful application of the philosophy of helping people to themselves cannot be separated from the exploration of the victim’s mentality caused by the law of the jungle.

Some scholars predict the demise of the law of the jungle in Datong society (common prosperity) advocated by Confucianism (Huang 2016; Suolang and Yao 2018). However, the exacerbation of the competition-driven discourse that the weak have only themselves to blame for their misfortune in nearly every contemporary Confucian modern society (Chung and Chung 2019; Jin 2022; Tikhonov 2016), has demonstrated that social Darwinism is established as the mainstream agenda for state modernization. In this social Darwinian world, the law of the jungle rules, and subverts social harmony, which traditional older adults value (Xu 2012). The more pessimistic side of the law of the jungle connects the alarmist image of the older population as a burden for younger generations and welfare states (Katz 1992). This external perception of older adults could be internalized by them as a sense of self-perceived uselessness, leading to poor health and high mortality (Zhao et al. 2017). More importantly, the law of the jungle could lead to mental illness in older people of the Confucian context, making them face endless conflict and competition between their inner impulses to compete with others and their aging bodies that can hardly support their ambitions (Rhi 1998).

Pioneering work and contemporary research on the theory of pragmatic prospection have found that prospective thinking marked by cautious realism and even pessimism could invoke meaningful planning with pragmatic utility, resulting in adaptive responses to feared bad news and may lead to positive life outcomes (Baumeister et al. 2016; Eubanks et al. 2023). As a concrete product of pragmatic prospection (Crook 2007), a more realistic perception of the law of the jungle may stimulate older adults to be more self-reliant than individuals with social fantasies and form adaptive responses to avoid being a financial burden to one’s family and society, such as being healthy and using fewer fiscal resources of the government (anti-welfare tendency) (Luo and Chui 2016). While these are valuable contributions, there is still a general lack of current work that comprehensively addresses the theory-of-pragmatic-prospection-based relationship between the law of the jungle, anti-welfare tendency, and mental health of older adults, including concurrently coherent conceptualization and examination of core psychological perception indicators of the law of the jungle, such as victim sensitivity (Bhui et al. 2019). To advance this question, this study provides a comprehensive assessment framework and proposes a definition associated with the law of the jungle as well as a key indicator (victim sensitivity).

Another salient (and perhaps more critical) issue in the current literature on the association between the anti-welfare tendency and the mental health of older adults is the perceived difference in the law of the jungle that affects the interaction between the former two. This may be particularly interesting because older adults have a strong emotional tendency to use productive behavior to reduce the worry of being abandoned by a society where the fittest survive (Lamb 2016), and enhance goal-directed action that might derail best-laid plans under unpleasant prospects about the future (Sweeny and Dooley 2017). Meanwhile, it is worth noting that the ideals of the anti-welfare tendency may confront the realization of deficient, dependent, and delicate bodies, adding to a sense of bodily betrayal, which encumbers independence and sets older adults toward despair (Moyse 2021). The resulting collision may lead older adults who have perceived the law of the jungle to go to two extremes: either fall into social depression, or enhance their positive attitude, and be spurred to cultivate a positive mentality. Therefore, this study focuses on assessing the potential interaction between the law of the jungle and the anti-welfare attitude in shaping the mental health of older adults.

In addition, this article explores the novel notion that the link among the above three may not hold true for older adults with varied levels of social trust, and those with a high level of social trust are more likely to enhance their positive mentality, for trust is an asset to multiply social capital (Noguchi et al. 2017), and it can reverse the negative mentality with physical aging relying on the mutual support from social relatives and friends in the absence of the government (Kim et al. 2023). This article develops and reconstructs theory by bringing together sociological perspectives on the social mentality, such as social Darwinism, pragmatic prospection, and theories on Confucian culture. To test the idea, this study focuses on China—a typical Confucian transitional society strengthening on equalitarianism, self-reliance, and pragmatism (Leung and Nann 1995), but also one of the countries in the world that is about to enter a deep aging society (Zhang et al. 2021). This national characteristic is deeply imprinted in the behavior and habits of Chinese people—even if in a welfare state like the UK, UK Chinese are still family-orientated and self-reliant, holding low expectations of public welfare (Chan et al. 2007). These features challenge the myth of welfare dependency of older adults. Also, using large-scale representative survey data in China can help scholars understand Chinese welfare practices based on strong moral values of self-reliance and duties towards other people.

Literature review

The law of the jungle and its impact on mental health

The law of the jungle can be seen as an expression of social Darwinism and ageism against welfare policies to support the older population (Kanık et al. 2022). The importance of the law of the jungle lies in its potential to create social-psychological barriers to wider public support for securing a healthy and productive future for older people, due to the overdramatization of the burdens on health and social services represented by the older population (Levy et al. 2022). Thus, the law of the jungle is a central issue in many sociological debates (Harper 2014).

Based on different dynamic stages, scholars have made considerable efforts to identify the most relevant elements of the law of the jungle, including antecedent ideologies such as shared roots in biological determinism (Rudman and Saud 2020), concomitant features such as general distrust, the feeling of threat and in-group favoritism (Molnar 2021), and consequence perceptions such as conspiracy mentality and social threat perception (Meuer and Imhoff 2021). This study makes an incremental contribution to the consequence perceptions of the law of the jungle by emphasizing the dimension of victimization of multiple marginalization (Brogden 2001); that is, as individuals age, they feel the pressure of the jungle to prey on the weak, and the individual’s tendency to experience strong emotional responses and reflect on injustices done against them. This personality trait reflects an individual’s anxious anticipation of being exploited by the socially dominant subject (Gollwitzer et al. 2021).

The relationship between anti-welfare dependence attitude and the law of the jungle

The anti-welfare attitude is also a psychological trait of older adults, consisting of the degree to which they feel self-reliant. Many Chinese older adults with anti-welfare attitudes aged above 80 years old identify self-reliance as the goal of successful aging. To realize self-reliance, they proactively do physical activity, ensure financial security, strengthen community connectedness, and increase their willingness to accept reality (Chen et al. 2020).

It is worth mentioning that Chinese older adults have a unique national characteristic: they have a self-restrained approach toward productive aging (Luo and Chui 2016). This implies the possibility that the stronger they perceive the law of the jungle, the stronger the tendency towards the anti-welfare attitude, and the stronger their desire for self-reliance, thus forming a closed loop of self-restraint. In addition, whether it is collectivism or familism, China’s welfare culture emphasizes a moral spirit of resiliency for older adults, which means survival through hardships creates a sense of success to consolidate their strengths to sustain negative events in the future (Cheung and Kam 2012).

Those older adults affected by collectivism and familism highly value self-reliance and autonomy, making these values the inexhaustible power underlying their anti-welfare attitudes in caregiving (Leung et al. 2020). Welfare-seeking is often delayed until they consider the situation to be beyond their own capacity to manage independently (Qiu et al. 2018). Especially under the current Chinese official discourse of “productive aging,” even older adults with disabilities tend to become self-reliant by making themselves productive despite their age (Zheng and Liu 2021).

However, the current challenge is that in the process of market economy development, the law of the jungle is intensifying (Munro 2018). The situations faced by older adults are often beyond their own capacity to cope with: from the family perspective, they need to face high costs of intergenerational support for their children (Li and Wu 2019) and grandchildren (Qi 2018; Tang et al. 2022); from the individual perspective, they will also face many illnesses with catastrophic health expenditure (Miao et al. 2022) and long-term care needs with related issues (Feng et al. 2020). In this case, exploring whether the combination of the consequence perceptions of the law of the jungle and the anti-welfare attitude strengthens or weakens the mental health of the older population can provide nuanced references for the construction of the social psychological service system for older adults in the context of Confucian society modernization.

The relationship between anti-welfare dependence attitude and mental health

Confucianism adheres to the concept of self-reliance. Confucian ethics often advocates: As Heaven’s movement is ever vigorous, so must a gentleman ceaselessly strive along (Jian 2018). Correspondingly, Confucianism-driven mental health promotion no longer focuses on defects, problems, and obstacles. Instead, it attempts to focus on individual strengths and initiative, and use this as a starting point to help individuals change their disadvantaged situation (Tsoi et al. 2022). In other words, in Confucianism, mentally healthy individuals are individuals who are fully aware of their consciousness, responsibility, and possibilities. They can discover potential, virtues, and hope from negative emotions such as poverty, pain, illusions, and self-destruction, seek positive factors in life, and explore the motivation to improve their living situations (Shiah and Hwang 2019).

People with a lifeway of self-reliance are termed exemplary persons. Confucians praise the ideal of self-cultivation as worthy, opposing welfare dependence (Lim 2021). For many older adults, self-reliance is also a representation of their dignity (Hung 2022). The psychological tendency to rely on the government will enhance their sense of shame (Shiraz et al. 2020). In the Confucian conception, a sense of shame is derived from internal disgust, which is detrimental to mental health (Liu 2023). At the same time, the psychological tendency against welfare will strengthen their Confucian ideal personality traits, which positively impact mental health (Ge and Hou 2021).

In the Confucian orientation, the formation of the anti-welfare dependence attitude is also a process of self-empowerment. The anti-welfare perspective opposes welfare dependence on the government, including misleading labeling (Battle 2019), pessimism (Sloman 2018), and unequal beneficiary relationships (Mitchell and Vincent 2021). The anti-welfare perspective values people’s resiliency and is committed to creating gritty citizens to handle adversity even in catastrophic events (Donoghue and Edmiston 2020). It incorporates the mindset of problem-solving therapy, recognizing that receiving government support is a process of mutual learning, focusing on one’s resources and advantages to explore future possibilities (Markantoni et al. 2018). It also integrates the spiritual factors of humanistic tradition and narrative techniques to reconstruct older adults’ life stories and meanings for positive aging (Pack et al. 2019).

Government care and self-reliance under Confucianism have commonalities and promote each other in practice. The anti-welfare perspective always emphasizes human potential and advantages, while government care aims to mobilize the target audience’s resources and find solutions to problems (Lee 2018). Whether from the conceptual assumptions or content references, the anti-welfare perspective is a beneficial supplement to the government paternalism perspective. It has brought the practice of gerontological mental health into a holistic era, prompting people to discover the positive aspects of older adults continuously.

If there is a choice, no one is willing to live the rest of their life in a pessimistic and negative way, and they will always find the way to happiness in various ways. The anti-welfare perspective is such an existence, attempting to help older adults find positive factors that integrate with social resources with lasting value (Tan and Barber 2020). These positive factors are often overlooked in modern transitional societies. By fully utilizing and amplifying these advantages, older adults can alleviate the impact of negative factors such as ageism and stigmatization in unequal power relationships when receiving government support (Lee and Song 2022). When older people’s advantages and resource beliefs are rediscovered and utilized, it generates resiliency from within the individual, and the anti-welfare perspective plays an undeniable role (Zhang 2022). The work mode from the perspective of anti-welfare can be summarized as assisting the individual in gaining strength from within. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: The anti-welfare dependence attitude is positively associated with the mental health of older adults.

The interplay between anti-welfare dependence attitude, mental health, and victim sensitivity

In the process of China’s economic system reform, social Darwinism offers an alternative to socialist egalitarianism (Munro 2018). As a vulnerable group, the mental health of older adults has been impacted by the Darwinian ethos of the law of the jungle (Li and Sunder 2021). The law of the jungle prompts older adults to develop a victim mentality: an increase in sensitivity to unfair behaviors, often develops strong negative emotions when facing injustice (Jordan and Zeigler-Hill 2020). Importantly, people with high sensitivity to perceive that they are victims have an anxious expectation of being exploited by others (Bhui et al. 2019). This anxiety expectation will manifest in behavior as a more substantial reliance on oneself and a reduced reliance on the outside world for self-protection (van Prooijen and Van Vugt 2018). In this regard, victim sensitivity is a double-edged sword: it may contribute to self-reliance, or maybe enough to make one trapped in a state of self-pity and collapse the spirit of self-reliance.

On the one hand, there is a positive correlation between victim sensitivity and self-reliance-related characteristics. The vigilant self-reliance triggered by victim sensitivity can become a source of resiliency to formulate a series of self-reliance strategies (Astill and Miller 2018). It can be reasonably assumed that groups with higher victim sensitivity are more likely to trigger effective self-reliance behaviors, integrating the anti-welfare dependence attitude with proactive actions. This hypothesis is supported by the empirical results, which show that in fighting policy loopholes, individuals with high victim sensitivity are more likely to turn to themselves rather than the government to perform self-protection behavior, thus obtaining a sense of security to help alleviate any pain and dysfunction caused thereby (Ilcan 2018). Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Victim sensitivity strengthens the relationship between the anti-welfare dependence attitude and the mental health of older adults.

On the other hand, victim sensitivity is positively correlated with mental health-related issues such as envy (Hong et al. 2023), phobic anxiety (Bondü and Inerle 2020), and full-blown paranoid ideation (Masillo et al. 2019). For example, victim sensitivity predicts the likelihood of depression in situations of self-imbalance and powerlessness (Kaufman et al. 2020). Victim sensitivity means that individuals are prone to doubt others and show non-cooperation behavior to protect themselves from (presumed) victimization (Schlösser et al. 2018). According to this reasoning, individuals with high victim sensitivity will exhibit more anger and moral indignation towards society, transforming their anti-welfare dependence attitudes to anti-social and self-destruction behaviors, resulting in worsened psychological dysfunction. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Victim sensitivity inhibits the relationship between the anti-welfare dependence attitude and the mental health of older adults.

Given the strong interdependence between victim sensitivity and trust (Meuer and Imhoff 2021), it is reasonable to assume that distrusting viruses will also significantly affect the regulatory effect of victim sensitivity. However, it is worth noting that there are both risk factors that amplify the regulatory effect of victim sensitivity, as well as elastic factors that reduce it. A risk factor is a degree to which there is a conflict of interest among individuals, which means that this situation occurs when valuable resources in society become scarce and, therefore, no longer fully available to everyone (Fischer et al. 2021). According to this reasoning, victim sensitivity involving high-trust groups triggers not only self-reliance but also interpersonal solidarity and cooperation, enhancing mental health (Gollwitzer et al. 2021).

However, trust is a form of social capital that helps maintain group commitment (Magraw‐Mickelson et al. 2022). If members of society do not trust each other, they are less willing to cooperate, which is not conducive to older adults, who are already vulnerable groups, leveraging their resources with external help, to improve their situation (Kim et al. 2022). Therefore, a low level of trust is an obstacle to victims’ sensitive triggering of positive self-reliance behavior for vulnerable groups. Trust is like a house of cards, which takes time and effort to establish, but it quickly collapses, which is why it is necessary to carefully weigh the heterogeneity of trust levels.

Hypothesis 4: The regulatory effect of victim sensitivity is more significant in high-trust groups.

Methods

Data and sample

The data in this study is sourced from the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS2017). The CGSS is a nationwide survey of changes in the status, roles, and concepts of social members in various aspects such as economy, politics, culture, etc., conducted by the Department of Sociology at the Renmin University of China and the Research Center of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The CGSS2017 survey is the tenth round of investigation. This survey adopts a stratified four-stage unequal probability sampling method: district (county), street (town), neighborhood or village committee, and households. The subjects of this survey were 10,000 urban and rural households in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan). One person was randomly selected as the respondent from each selected household. The research object of this study is the mental health of older adults. Therefore, after screening and eliminating samples with missing indicators, this study ultimately obtained 1373 effective samples.

Measures

Mental health

The mental health measured in this study refers to the psychological state of a person who operates well in both emotional and behavioral adjustments; that is, the psychological state in which individuals possess self-efficacy and autonomy (Jiang et al. 2021), perceive beauty in the surrounding environment (Wang et al. 2019), maintain a positive attitude to life (Brooke and Clark 2020), establish meaningful connections with others (Santini et al. 2020), adapt well to change (Fuller and Huseth-Zosel 2021), and have motivation and pleasure in daily activities (Andrews et al. 2019). This study assesses mental health regarding the above six aspects using 19 self-report items. Items to assess self-efficacy and autonomy include: “I understand the significance of what I have done in my life,” “I don’t often feel particularly uncomfortable in certain parts of my body,” “I don’t feel distressed about my health,” “I appreciate my personality,” “I am happy that my views have become increasingly mature over the years.” Items to assess the perception of beauty in the surrounding environment include: “I feel very confident in the development of social environment” and “I am satisfied with the natural environment around me.” Items to assess a positive attitude to life include: “Society will provide more and more choices for people,” “Most of the life goals I set can inspire me, not discourage me,” “Compared to the people around me, I am very satisfied,” and “I am satisfied with my family’s situation.” Items to assess the establishment of meaningful connections with others include: “I often find it easy to establish friendships with others,” “I don’t think most people have more friends than I do,” “I feel particularly happy to be with my family members,” and “I seldom find it difficult to communicate with my family members, including parents, loved ones, children, etc.” Items to assess the adaptation wellness to change include: “As I grow older, I have learned a lot from life, which has made me stronger and more capable” and “I seldom worry about small things.” Items to assess the motivation and pleasure in daily activities include: “I seldom think that I’m just messing around” and “When encountering something unhappy, I won’t lose my spirits for a long time.” Items are rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very disagree) to 6 (very agree). Responses to items are summed, with higher scores indicating better mental health status (total scores ranged from 51 to 111). The Cronbach’s alpha of the mental health indicator is 0.826.

Anti-welfare dependence attitude

The anti-welfare dependence attitude is closely related to self-reliance, emphasizing that hard work and individual responsibility rather than entitlement or collective provision should determine individuals’ welfare (Chong and Ng 2017). Individuals with an anti-welfare dependence attitude tend to attribute social security and child benefits to individual responsibility rather than government responsibility (Cooper and Burchardt 2022). This study assesses the anti-welfare dependence attitude regarding the above two aspects using 4 self-report items. Items to assess social security responsibility attribution include: “Do you think medical care of older adults is whose responsibility?” and “Do you think daily care of older adults is whose responsibility?” Items to assess child benefits responsibility attribution include: “Do you think taking care of children is whose responsibility?” and “Do you think educational expenses for children are whose responsibility.” Items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (completely government responsibility) to 5 (completely personal/family responsibility). Response to items is summed, with higher scores indicating a stronger anti-welfare dependence attitude (total scores ranged from 4 to 20). The Cronbach’s alpha of the anti-welfare dependence attitude indicator is 0.810.

Family-centered Confucian culture

From a historical perspective, Confucianism has deeply influenced the welfare culture of East Asia, and its most important manifestation is the emphasis placed on families by the East Asian welfare system (Chung et al. 2021). In East Asia, the family-centered Confucian culture refers to individuals primarily relying on family rather than the government to provide care for older adults and children (Bífárìn et al. 2021; Wong 2019). As Yuda et al. (2021) put it, the family-centered Confucian culture has discouraged people from leaning toward welfare state ideas, thereby maintaining a more robust anti-welfare dependence attitude. At the same time, considering that the family-centered Confucian culture has internalized into the thinking and behavioral patterns of East Asian ethnic groups, it is the institutional and cultural background for studying East Asian older adults (Muyskens 2020). Therefore, it does not directly affect their mental health. This study chooses the family-centered Confucian culture as an instrumental variable. As a starting point, the concept of honoring ancestors could be a feasible operational method for measuring the family-centered Confucian culture (Eng 2020). In CGSS2017, one item could represent the concept of honoring ancestors: “Children should do something to honor their parents.” The item is rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very disagree) to 7 (very agree).

Victim sensitivity

Victim sensitivity refers to individuals’ emotional response strongness to unfair situations and their tendency to reflect on their disadvantages in the face of unfairness (Gollwitzer et al. 2021). Individuals with high victim sensitivity are prone to repeated contemplation and experience negative emotions after being treated unfairly, which are detrimental to their cognitive and emotional detachment (Lavelle et al. 2018). This study assesses victim sensitivity with two self-report items adapted from Schmitt et al. (2010): “I feel my luck is worse than others,” and “I feel quite disadvantaged compared to the people around me.” Items are rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very disagree) to 6 (very agree). Response to items is summed, with higher scores indicating stronger victim sensitivity (total scores ranged from 2 to 12).

Covariates

Based on existing literature, the covariates related to the mental health status of older adults can be divided into three categories: demographic factors (Lyons et al. 2018), socio-economic factors (Qin et al. 2018), and lifestyle factors (Bruin et al. 2018). Items to represent demographic factors include age (continuous variable), sex (“female” coded as 0, “male” coded as 1), marital status (“not in a marriage” coded as 0, “in a marriage” coded as 1), and residence (“rural” coded as 0, “urban” coded as 1). Items to represent socio-economic factors include education (“junior high school and below” coded as 0, “above junior high school” coded as 1), income (“¥100,000/$14,138 and below in 2016” coded as 0, “above ¥100,000/$14,138 in 2016” coded as 1), National Medical Insurance (“no” coded as 0, “yes” coded as 1), and National Pension Insurance (“no” coded as 0, “yes” coded as 1). Items to represent lifestyle factors include the frequency of TV usage in 2016, the frequency of Internet usage in 2016, the frequency of gatherings with relatives in 2016, and the frequency of gatherings with friends in 2016—answers ranging from 1(never) to 5(very frequent).

Statistical strategy

This study aims to investigate the correlation between the anti-welfare dependence attitude and the mental health of older adults and identify the moderating role of victim sensitivity in the above relationship. To verify the research hypotheses, the following benchmark statistical model is constructed for multivariate regression:

$$\begin{array}{l}{{{\mathrm{Mental}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{health}}}}_{{{\mathrm{i}}}}\\ \quad \quad = \,{\upbeta}_0 + {\upbeta}_1{{{\mathrm{Anti}}}} - {{{\mathrm{welfare}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{dependence}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{attitude}}}}_{{{\mathrm{i}}}} + {\upbeta}_2{{{\mathrm{Victim}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{sensitivity}}}}_{{{\mathrm{i}}}}\\ \quad \quad + \,{\upbeta}_3{{{\mathrm{Anti}}}} - {{{\mathrm{welfare}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{dependence}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{attitude}}}}_{{{\mathrm{i}}}} \ast {{{\mathrm{Victim}}}}\,{{{\mathrm{sensitivity}}}}_{{{\mathrm{i}}}}\\ \quad \quad + \,{\upbeta}_4{{{\mathrm{CV}}}}_{{{\mathrm{i}}}} + \varepsilon _{{{\mathrm{i}}}}\left( {{{{\mathrm{i}}}} = 1,2,3 \ldots {{{\mathrm{N}}}}} \right)\end{array}$$

Where β0 denotes the intercept term, Mental healthi stands for the mental health status of the subject i, Anti − welfare − dependence attitudei means the attitude of subject i toward welfare dependence on government, Anti − welfare dependence attitudei * Victim sensitivityi represents the interaction items of anti-welfare dependence attitude and victim sensitivity of subject i, CVi indicates control variables of subject i, and εi is the error term of subject i. In addition, β1, β2, β3, and β4 are all regression coefficients.

This study uses Stata 16.0 (StataCorp., Texas, United States) software for the following statistical analyses. First, this study uses a variance inflation factor (VIF) to measure multicollinearity among the independent variables in the multivariate regression model. Second, this study presents the descriptive sample characteristics. Third, this study adds control variables to alleviate endogeneity issues caused by omitted variable bias and selects the OLS model for benchmark regression analysis. Fourth, this study uses supplementing missing variables method and changing sample size method to test robustness. Fifth, to cope with the problem of interdependent endogeneity with mutual causality between anti-welfare dependence attitude and mental health, this study uses family-centered Confucian culture as an instrumental variable to conduct Two-Stage least squares (2SLS) regression analysis. Sixth, this study uses victim sensitivity as the moderating variable for a regulatory mechanism test. Finally, this study conducts heterogeneity analysis based on trust.

Results

Before the regression analysis, this study used VIFs to detect the inflation amount in the variances of the regression coefficients due to multicollinearity. The results showed that both the individual VIF for each variable and the mean VIF of variables were less than 5, indicating no multicollinearity between independent variables. Therefore, the regression model is reliable.

Sample characteristics

Table 1 displays the descriptive sample statistics. Regarding demographic characteristics, the respondents’ average age was 72.564 (SD = 8.038, range [61, 99]). The sample contains 724 (52.73%) females and 649 (47.27%) males. 1050 (76.47%) of them were in a marriage. The proportion of rural (49.16%) and urban (50.84%) respondents was almost equal. Regarding socio-economic characteristics, a notable portion of respondents (1035; 75.38%) had not received education above junior high school. In addition, 1308 (95.27%) respondents had a personal income below ¥100,000/$14,138 in 2016. Most respondents had National Medical Insurance (1291; 94.03%) or National Pension Insurance (1132; 82.45%). Regarding lifestyle characteristics, the respondents’ average frequency of TV usage in 2016 was high (4.058; range [1, 5]), while the average frequency of Internet usage in 2016 was low (1.945; range [1, 5]). The respondents’ average frequency of gatherings with relatives (2.114; range [1, 5]) or gatherings with friends (2.183; range [1, 5]) in 2016 was medium.

Table 1 Descriptive sample statistics.
Full size table

Regarding core variables, the mean mental health was 79.065 (SD = 10.413, range [51, 111]), indicating moderate mental health status with a relatively large disparity. Meanwhile, the mean anti-welfare dependence attitude was 13.511 (SD = 3.105, range [4, 20]), indicating a medium anti-welfare dependence attitude with no large disparity. In contrast, as the instrumental variable, the mean family-centered Confucian culture was 5.830 (SD = 1.034, range [1, 7]), indicating high family-centered Confucian culture with no large disparity. In addition, the mean victim sensitivity was 5.894 (SD = 1.976, range [2, 12]), indicating medium victim sensitivity with no large disparity.

Benchmark ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis

Table 2 shows the regression analysis on mental health by anti-welfare dependence attitude. This study adds control variables to alleviate endogeneity issues caused by omitted variable bias and selects the OLS model for benchmark regression analysis.

Table 2 OLS regression analysis on mental health by anti-welfare dependence attitude.
Full size table

The anti-welfare dependence attitude was positively correlated with the mental health of older adults at the 1% significance level (coefficient = 0.618, p < 0.001), preliminary validating research hypothesis 1.

The regression results for other determinants of mental health, such as demographic, socio-economic, and lifestyle factors, are consistent with existing studies. Regarding demographic factors, age was a protective factor for mental health (coefficient = 0.089, p = 0.011). Females (coefficient = 1.579, p = 0.003) and urban residents (coefficient = 4.014, p < 0.001) had better mental health than males and rural residents. Regarding socio-economic factors, education was a protective factor for mental health (coefficient = 2.114, p = 0.003). People with National Pension Insurance (coefficient = 2.555, p < 0.001) had better mental health than people without. Regarding lifestyle factors, the frequency of TV usage (coefficient = 1.253, p < 0.001), Internet usage (coefficient = 0.585, p = 0.003), and gatherings with relatives in 2016 (coefficient = 1.205, p = 0.001) were protectors of mental health.

Robustness test

To check the robustness of the benchmark regression results more strictly, in addition to adding covariates, the following methods are also used to verify: First, supplement the control variables. Although the least squares estimation of a linear model can obtain a consistent estimator under certain conditions, the traditional least squares-based estimation method cannot obtain a robust estimator when there are key missing variables. To eliminate the impact of missing variables, this study includes subjective social class (“In our society, some people are at the top, and some are at the bottom. The ladder of this card needs to be viewed from top to bottom. The highest score of “10” represents the top social class, and the lowest score of “1” represents the bottom social class. Which social class do you personally belong to? Please choose a score. Scores range from “1” to “10”) as the key missing variable for further analysis to see if the conclusion would change. Second, change the sample size. When there are outliers in the sample, the estimation results of the least squares model are often biased and can be corrected by changing the sample size. Considering that China is about to enter a profoundly deep aging society, to respond to this social reality and reflect the research purpose, this study selects respondents from the oldest old over 75 according to the World Health Organization (WHO) standard as a sample to test whether the conclusions are still robust.

Table 3 shows the results of the two robustness tests. Under two testing methods, the correlation (Method 1: coefficient = 0.561, p < 0.001; Method 2: coefficient = 0.540, p < 0.001) between anti-welfare dependence attitude and mental health is consistent with benchmark OLS regression, except that the coefficient size has slightly decreased. However, it is still within an acceptable range. Therefore, the conclusion that the anti-welfare dependence attitude is significantly and positively correlated with the mental health of older adults can be recognized as robust and reliable.

Table 3 Robustness test of OLS regression.
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Two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression analysis

Table 4 reports the first-stage regression summary statistics of 2SLS using the instrumental variable (family-centered Confucian culture). The instrumental variable passed the weak instrumental variable test (F = 19.197 > 16.38), which shows that the instrumental variable meets exogenous requirements and could effectively deal with endogeneity issues.

Table 4 First-stage regression summary statistics.
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Table 5 shows the second-stage regression summary statistics of 2SLS. The results are consistent with the OLS estimation conclusions but slightly different. After the use of the instrumental variable, the correlation coefficient (4.049; p < 0.001) between anti-welfare dependence attitude and mental health of older adults is significantly larger than that estimated by the OLS method (0.561; p < 0.001), which indicates that the mutual causal relationship between anti-welfare dependence attitude and the mental health of older adults makes the correlation coefficient of the two shift downward and tends to underestimate the correlation between the two. The 2SLS estimation results confirm the robust and reliable conclusion that the anti-welfare dependence attitude positively correlates with the mental health of older adults.

Table 5 Two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression analysis on mental health by anti-welfare dependence attitude.
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Regulatory mechanism test

In the regulatory mechanism based on multivariate regression, this study centers the mean of the independent and moderating variables, then generates the interaction item of the two to reduce the non-essential multicollinearity and improve the understanding of their regression coefficients.

Table 6 shows the regression results of the moderating role of victim sensitivity. The interaction between anti-welfare dependence attitude and victim sensitivity is significantly positive (coefficient = 0.129, p < 0.001). This indicates that victim sensitivity strengthens the positive correlation between anti-welfare dependence attitude and the mental health of older adults. In other words, the anti-welfare dependence attitude has a stronger positive correlation with mental health in older adults with high victim sensitivity, which confirms research hypothesis 2.

Table 6 Regression results of the moderating role of victim sensitivity.
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As shown in Fig. 1, the increase in the anti-welfare dependence attitude is related to mental health improvement. In contrast, the increase in victim sensitivity is related to mental health deterioration. Moreover, as victim sensitivity increases, the positive correlation between the anti-welfare dependence attitude and the mental health of older adults is enhanced.

Fig. 1: Simple slopes analysis.
Fig. 1: Simple slopes analysis.The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
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Victim sensitivity strengthens the positive relationship between the anti-welfare attitude and the mental health of older adults.

Heterogeneity analysis based on trust

The following question is: Is the regulatory effect of victim sensitivity the same across different populations? In which group of people is victim sensitivity more likely to play a role? In view of this, this study analyzes the issue of group differences in victim sensitivity from the perspective of trust to obtain more meaningful conclusions.

This study used a question to assess trust. The question is, “In general, do you agree that most people can be trusted in this society?” (“very disagree” coded as 1, “relatively disagree” coded as 2, “hard to tell” coded as 3, “relatively agree” coded as 4, and “very agree” coded as 5). 1–3 corresponds to the low to medium trust group (group 1), and 4–5 to the high trust group (group 2).

Table 7 reports the regression results of group 1 and group 2, respectively. For group 1, the moderating effect of victim sensitivity is insignificant (coefficient = 0.105, p = 0.103). However, for group 2, the moderating effect of victim sensitivity is significant (coefficient = 0.128, p = 0.001). This indicates that group 2 is more sensitive to the moderating effect of victim sensitivity. In other words, victim sensitivity is more likely to strengthen the positive relationship between anti-welfare dependence attitude and mental health in older adults with a high level of trust, which confirms research hypothesis 4.

Table 7 Heterogeneity analysis based on trust.
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Discussion

Narrowing down from the detailed findings, this discussion wishes to highlight three contributions: the law of the jungle broadly (Chung and Chung 2019; Huang 2016; Tikhonov 2016), the anti-welfare attitude and the Confucian cultural literature (Luo and Chui 2016; Moyse 2021; Suolang and Yao 2018), and the social mentality literature on pragmatic prospection (Baumeister et al. 2016; Eubanks et al. 2023).

First, while some consequence perceptions of the law of the jungle, such as conspiracy mentality and social threat perceptions (Meuer and Imhoff 2021), are proven to be related to mental health in older adults, they do not appear to be directly linked to the anti-welfare attitude like the dimension of victimization of multiple marginalization (Brogden 2001). Using cross-sectional data, this study is capable of determining the superposition of the consequence perception of the law of the jungle (victim sensitivity) (Gollwitzer et al. 2021) and the positive relationship between anti-welfare attitude and the mental health of Chinese older adults, possibly because the unique national characteristic of Chinese older adults play a key role: they have a self-restrained approach toward productive aging (Luo and Chui 2016). The stronger they perceive the law of the jungle, the stronger the tendency towards the anti-welfare attitude, and the stronger their desire for self-reliance, thus forming a closed loop of self-restraint.

Second, an interesting discovery is that even after undergoing welfare modernization like in Western countries, Chinese older adults are still self-reliant, holding low expectations of public welfare (Chan et al. 2007). On the one hand, this can be seen as evidence of Confucian sustaining moral foundations for the older population, such as self-reliance and duties toward other people (Leung and Nann 1995). On the other hand, the government’s agenda of promoting productive aging may also strengthen the sense of self-reliance among older adults (Zheng and Liu 2021).

Finally, from a pragmatic perspective, not having illusions about social welfare promotes the autonomy of the older adults on their own and family members (Qiu et al. 2018), which partly explains the micro-mechanism behind the overall trend of the family acting as a national welfare solution and the absence of government welfare (Leung and Nann 1995). However, how to reconcile and integrate traditional morality and anti-welfare concepts and beliefs with the recent modern civilization and social Darwinism is still a daunting challenge.

In line with previous research, the anti-welfare dependence attitude itself is a manifestation of psychological self-empowerment (Ge and Hou 2021; Hung 2022; Lim 2021; Tan and Barber 2020). Returning to Confucianism (Estes 2020), the term “vulnerable groups” indicates a negative social image. Confucians praise the ideal of self-cultivation as worthy, opposing welfare dependence (Buffel 2018; Lim 2021). The essence of empowerment is to form a balanced power relationship between helpers and beneficiaries so that both parties’ demands can be expressed, rights can be respected, interests can be realized, and each party can avoid infringement by the other party (Maulod and Lu 2020). This requires the government to support and grant the legitimacy of older adults’ self-empowerment from a traditional cultural perspective (Jian 2018; Shiah and Hwang 2019), establish a formal support system to protect the rights and interests of older adults for self-reliance and change the traditional top-down participation approach (Battle 2019; Mitchell and Vincent 2021; Sloman 2018;) into a bottom-up form of empowerment (Markantoni et al. 2018; Pack et al. 2019).

As one consequence perception of the law of the jungle (Li and Sunder 2021; Munro 2018), victim sensitivity makes the concept of helping others to help themselves more effective in promoting gerontological mental health. Against the backdrop of China’s comprehensive poverty alleviation, the basic survival needs of older adults, such as food and clothing, are mainly supplemented by the government (Guo and Liu 2022). What needs to be worried more is that social Darwinism may lead to changes in the mentality of older adults (Bhui et al. 2019). For older adults with high victim sensitivity, the relationship between the anti-welfare dependence attitude and mental health has been strengthened, which conforms with previous studies (Astill and Miller 2018; Ilcan 2018). This implies that in a Confucian society that emphasizes the importance of harmony, it seems that victim sensitivity has not led to more uncooperative behavior among older adults (Bondü and Inerle 2020; Hong et al. 2023; Kaufman et al. 2020; Masillo et al. 2019; Schlösser et al. 2018).

It is worth noting that the strengthening effect of victim sensitivity is conditional. For groups with a high level of trust, victim sensitivity may help individuals transform the anti-welfare dependence attitude into self-improving behavior (Gollwitzer et al. 2021). This also reflects the traditional spirit of mutual assistance in Chinese Confucianism (Jian 2018). Since the self-reliance of the older population is not entirely dependent on themselves but rather involves mobilizing their social resources from others, a lack of trust will make it difficult for older adults to engage in cooperative behavior with society and the government, leading to a stalemate of self-isolation (Kim et al. 2022; Magraw‐Mickelson et al. 2022). Self-reliance requires institutional support (Lee 2018). The government should shoulder the responsibility of prompting older adults to accumulate social capital for solving personal problems.

It should be cautious about applying the anti-welfare perspective in practice. To some extent, it overlooks the importance of government support in meeting the basic welfare needs of older adults. The motivational component of the anti-welfare perspective could only be realized by fulfilling Maslow’s lower-level needs first (Goede and Boshuizen‐van Burken 2019). No matter how strong the will to self-reliance is, it cannot improve mental health without providing food, warmth, shelter, safety, and medical treatment (Hale et al. 2019). The excessive portrayal of Confucian exemplary persons as inspirational models lacks the considerations mentioned above, resulting in older adults in urgent need not being able to receive timely external assistance, which shifts the public’s focus and delays the process of resolving the psychological problems of older adults from a systemic perspective. Due to some unresolved institutional issues, introducing the anti-welfare perspective in remote areas of China may overlook resource integration, leading to decreased government welfare, especially material assistance. The essence of helping people to help themselves determines that government support will not fall behind the scenes.

Conclusions

Confucianism adheres to the concept of self-reliance. This study provides an example of how philosophical thought can become both a topic of research on gerontological mental health and a tool for its analysis. The results imply that the anti-welfare dependence attitude is positively correlated with the mental health of older adults. Meanwhile, victim sensitivity plays a strengthening role in moderating the above relationship. Regarding different levels of trust, the regulatory effect in older groups with a high level of trust is significant, but not in older groups with low trust. Examining the local applicability of the concept of helping people to help themselves from the micro level offers a potential for designing more refined public policies regarding gerontological mental health promotion. Therefore, the findings suggest that policies aimed at assisting the individual in gaining strength from within, which attempts to help older adults find positive factors that integrate with social resources with lasting value, are likely to improve the mental health of Chinese older adults.

Individual social mentalities can be part of a policy feedback loop—as older people experience greater self-restraint (Moyse 2021), the likelihood of self-reliance and reliance on the family to supplement the role of the state increases. Self-reliance has become part of the invisible armor that modern seniors equip themselves with against the risks of the law of the jungle. And precisely because the perception of the law of the jungle reinforces the fear that one’s own capacity is not sufficient to deal with emergencies, older adults are more likely to conform to the official discourse of productive aging and become more self-reliant (Zheng and Liu 2021). Although from the perspective of individual psychological mechanisms, the combination of the anti-welfare attitude and the law of the jungle has strengthened the mental health of older adults, there are still long-term hidden challenges: if the state is absent for a long time, when the external risk world is no longer within the control of the private welfare of older adults, will they be overwhelmed by pressures, enter a threshold, move to the other side of the resilience fracture, and fall into social depression? This study will leave it to future research to test these alternative explanations.